Conway, Kobayashi and Lopez edge closer WEC title with dominant Bahrain win

The No.7 Toyota crew of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez edged closer to winning the 2021 World Endurance Championship title on Saturday after dominating the '6 Hours of Bahrain' event in Sakhir.

Conway, Kobayashi and Lopez, who also won August's Le Mans 24 Hours, led home the sister No.8 crew of Sebastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima and Brendon Hartley for a Toyota 1-2.

Buemi had started the race from the front after Hartley secured pole in Friday's qualification, but their stablemates soon proved to have the greater pace overall.

Kobayashi led the Toyota GR010 Hybrid across the line with a 50-second lead over Nakajima's car to secure a third consecutive Bahrain win.

Conway, Kobayashi and Lopez will head into next weekend's season finale at the same venue as the title favourites.

The No. 36 Alpine A480-Gibson of Nicolas Lapierre, Matthieu Vaxiviere and Andre Negrao, finished third, one lap behind.

LMP2 class was the pick of the bunch, with an excellent battle between WRT, Jota and United Autosports livening up the race.

The Le Mans-winning No.31 ORECA of Robin Frijns, Ferdinand Habsburg and Charles Milesi was fastest in the LMP2 class, ahead of the No.28 Jota ORECA of Stoffel Vandoorne, Tom Blomqvist and Sean Gelael.